 Okay, right. Right, um, my name is Peggy Namadi Saka I'm the one doing the interview and um, I'm the regional coordinator for Kenya Lions Advancement of Children in Kost region. So I let the young person introduce himself like it's his name, his age and his relationship with Kost. Thank you so much, Namadi. My name is Obed Mitao Mule. I am a kakubel appreciate first of commos. Right now I'm a child rights ambassador. I have gone through the system. I've been there with kakubel empowerment and now I'm coming back to give back to the children and also to empower fellow youth so that we can start a program. Right now I'm currently 20 years old. I'm returning 21 in December and I'm also a mechanical engineering student and it's a pleasure to be here. Can you tell us a little bit about who you are? Okay, you are just a little bit more besides who exactly are you and what have you been getting? I think to define that if you are able to just take everything away from me the one single thing that I've left with I think is the voice. I consider myself a voice even for the guys who don't have voices. The voice that's not enough because first of all I really love the empowerment reaching out to younger people interacting with children, getting to know what are the issues that are facing them because as a child I can relate to back then to the issues that were facing me. We had issues on abuse physical abuse of children, sexual abuse of children children who were not able to access education and all these things were actually happening in my community as I'm actually happening with myself. So that was for me getting going back and actually empowering those children empowering my family that is one thing that has stuck with me and I think will stick with me for the rest of my life. Thank you. What does peace mean to you? Peace. I think peace for me starts from inside inside one oneself being accepting who you are first of all so that you are able to accept others as they are and if you are able to live in a society that is inclusive that means each and everyone of us is able to accept the other for who they are no matter how different the cultures are no matter how different the person speak no matter how different the colour of the skin of the other person is I think that will be the perfect scenario of peace What is freedom to you? Freedom is the expression if I am able to express my heart if I am able to express my heart if I am able to express my thoughts if I am able to express my views and speak them out actually any fear that I might be stigmatized that I might be isolated maybe rejected by guys that is freedom. And you feel yourself what does it mean for you to be safe for me it is all about being protected either by the law secondly I am a religious person I also believe in safety from a higher power I also believe in safety from the community the people that I put around me So you have expressed what peace means to you what freedom means to you and what self being self means to you what will it take what do you need for the above to happen what will it take to ensure that the desires that you have placed happen what will it take for you to enjoy that freedom to enjoy that peace and to you that safety I think if you all come together all the stakeholders for me the biggest of all is the government the community and then the marginalized people all of us if we all work together including the marginalized groups that is I am also including the children the youths so for me if we are all able to actually come together come on ground and actually decide that you know we are going to make movements together and when the government sets policies everyone in consideration together with the all others even the non-governmental organization Do you know the kind of work that CAC does? So what kind of work do you do and what are some of the people you work with what CAC works with I know that CAC works the United Nations it's also the African Union because I'm an observer's theater apart recently it's trying to end institutional human trafficking so actually CAC actually deals mostly with the children and the youth as well it seeks to empower them not just advocate for their rights but also empower them to actually be able to advocate for their own rights advocate for the rights of their own peers other children as well so the reason why this work is very important to me is because the issues that they are tackling in that focus of child rights actually are very close to home because they actually grew up in the community where actually all this was happening we had the unsafe environment for children where children didn't have access to primary education and even when they did have the environment at the schools did not allow them to actually stay in the school and be able to actually get that education that they actually tested for so they're actually coming in to come and step up fight for the rights of these children empower us to even speak out until the government that you are failing in some areas that for me was a big challenge a big motivation for me so do you think this is important? very very because there is still a lot to be done especially for the children in Mombasa County the children in Kenya as a whole children youth as opposed to have freedom the freedom to play to choose their own friends and to express themselves does this does not always happen and if it doesn't why not we come from a community that actually puts the children as the lowest people among us everywhere you go especially in Mombasa County it's a child that is not allowed to sit down and actually express their views actually the adults will do that basically because of the old notion that children actually do not know what they want when in real sense they actually know what they want so for me we have been told that we have that right to express ourselves but they actually we are not given that platform to actually express ourselves so for me we are not able to simply because the community doesn't want to view us as people who can actually address express our issues, express our problems so it's been a really big hurdle for us to come back but I'm glad that institutions are actually jumping in kath is jumping in to empower us to actually tell the community that this young guys can actually teach something they can actually tell you what is actually affecting them instead of you actually just assuming now I think can be done to ensure that you have that freedom of expression or you have that freedom to play freedom to play and to express yourself to have your voice heard to choose your own friends to express yourself basically what do you think awareness awareness actually getting down into the interior parts to actually speak them they are children who have never had their rights I know it's very hard to imagine but they are actually there they don't know that they have the right to have a right to participate even making of policies by the county government and the national level the children who don't know that they have actually a right to education that protects them even from early marriage they are still small cases of FGM which is currently happening children that they don't know that they have a right to protection for all this to happen I think awareness is a very key thing but too many more support systems because sometimes even the children who have been empowered as they grow they get to 18 and then there are not so many programs for them to actually continue so they actually left that so after 18 what is left tell me why is it that I know you alluded to it but maybe I want you to forget a little further why is it that children do not get that opportunity to play what are the main reasons of children not playing we have so many cases it's a very sad thing that we have so many cases around grabbing the allocated playing grounds because I remember playing grounds that I played as a child because now we have constructions and nobody is actually jumping in to actually say that so constructing even as much as development is a key thing we need to do but we should actually have spaces playing grounds for the kids to come and play on the fields also in a big terrible state because we still need to nurture the talents of children just about education in the classroom there is also education also outside the classroom now alia when I I asked you concerning partners for KAK you talked about the partnership that KAK has international does KAK work at the national level community level are there any partners to know that we work with at the community level in your connection partners you work with KAK is actually a merger 20 and 50 ages so basically the kind of work we do we don't have to necessarily be there in the nation so with the 250 arms that they actually made they actually able to reach even the interior parts that would have been really hard for them to actually get to it if they decide to go to do but through the organization of 20 and 50 ages to impact Kenya as a whole and I am also very glad to say that it has also been international we have the United Nations United Church of Canada we have the African Union so all these international partners are actually making a cut to have an impact even international can you talk about the networks the networks what KAK works with we have I think child rights clubs most especially in the in the primary schools that is the first plan KAK also works in conjunction other NGO we have the plan so all of them are actually able to come in together okay for the rise of children especially the child rights clubs we also have the county assembly which KAK actually has a liaison because in each and every county we have a children assembly and even at the national level we have a Kenya children assembly so so in the child rights okay basically it comes back to the county at a very lower level we have the county child rights assembly especially so basically what they do is they incorporate both the children in the county especially in the CRCs that is the children rights clubs in different primary schools and even the secondary schools from different counties brings them all together to the county children assembly and then in conjunction all of them come up and make the national national families so um okay that's interesting that's interesting now what message can you be able to give to the Canadian children what message what can you tell the children in Canada basically what is your message to them you say have you fear keep going because I think those keep going those words that means a lot whatever it is I can assure them that if they just keep going they will get to where they want to because looking back to where I am right now I'm very proud to say that those two words have been a really big motivation and it's not just about the people who are around you it may seem that sometimes there's not that much of a support system but if you are able to actually empower yourself from inside and actually feel that you are somebody just going up to the assembly but you are actually somebody you will actually get to where you want to the situation of a cohesive environment you get to it all takes time maybe this is out of the questions besides the questions that I have set aside to ask you recently as a youth you travelled to Canada to go and have a next in program maybe you can take a little bit about the experience you had with the youth in Canada and and the experience you've had with the youth here and how do you what can you say about that how do you use what you learned and how do you think what can you give the youth back the experience that you've had recently the experience in Canada was awesome the kids there were awesome we had so much interactive sessions with the children and the youth because we had the the world come we also had the Go project where we go to interact with different children from different age groups we also go to interactive youth and we actually saw their youth programs and they were so much alike with what we had here because they also had workshops to buy the children and the youth and they taught us in the children class so that was very amazing to see because they were actually trying to give the children a global a global vision a global purpose but it was just about the problems of the issues they were facing but the children actually wanted to know what it was like outside and I also think that is what is also happening in Kenya because youths and children actually they don't want just to be national level because they also want a global vision to solve issues and actually see the message I can give to the Kenya youth from my experience back in Canada is that we all need to be one collective just one huge body we can all come together put all our experiences together actually we can actually be able to have more of us and actually if I am able just to touch two or three lives I will touch another two or three with time I might now be able to get to everyone at once by the time the network that I have built will be able to actually get to the areas that I want to and the issues that we all will be facing we will actually be able to have a better right so did you go alone? no maybe why I am asking this is because this is going to share with other youths so is there other youth you are able to learn or you are connected with here to be able to advance or to push for these issues of safety, freedom and peace in this country are you working alone? no, I am not working alone it's very hard to say that if you want to go first walk alone but with someone else I am glad that I have youths around me and children around me that actually share the same vision so in Mombasa we have so many but to mention just a few Hazel we have 30 and on national scale we have so many that we went to unfortunately we only went 6 of us but I think we could have gone to even thousands and millions to come with us but it was not possible to fit all of them in a plane so we had guys that came from Kisumu others came from Nairobi like Malim others came from eastern part like Moses and they actually all had different experiences from my own so that is what you are advocating for and I was actually able to share my experiences with them and at the time I was able to learn so much from the guys from the different parts of Kenya because I was also I didn't know that there were issues like that happening and they were also able to learn from us together with I and Hazel especially from Kusupa so it was a really nice experience for me to actually first of all learn from my own home country my fellow citizens my fellow colleagues and then actually be able to go and learn from colleagues on the international scale in Canada Thank you very much Obet for your time and you are grateful Thank you Okay so for me the work of Kath is very important because it actually provides a platform where young people and children are able to actually give out a voice because when actually Kath comes down to the local community base it actually comes down to the child rights clubs in primary schools it comes down to youth groups in the communities that we have and actually is able to empower all of us so what normally happens is that we are able actually to express our views not only just at the local level whereby we all actually get to say the issues that are affecting us in our communities we are actually able to get to represent it even on a national scale the best example I can give on the on the national scale is that at one point in time one of us that was able to actually lobby a bill to the parliamentary committee to actually ban the advertisement of alcohol before 9pm and I think that was one of the biggest milestones that we made actually as Kenyan children from the local level to the national level and even to the international level whereby I was actually privileged to actually represent the African children the African youth to actually voice out in the third and fourth state party report of Kenya to the UNCRC in Geneva in 2015 whereby we actually was able to express our views and our challenges especially in the issues of radicalization environmental pollution that actually begin to affect so much of us especially in the Mubasa account and even in Kenya because of the setting up of industries yet they did not actually factor in the communities that they are actually setting them around in and even continuing back to see that even in the national level and even in the community level it has actually been able to bring in different NGOs different CSOs and different county child rights clubs and organizations to actually be able to lobby so with that much network and that much support needed we are actually able to voice the issues of our families of our children and right even from the time I was 13 years old that is when I actually started in 2015 up to this point I'm glad to say that KAK has given me a platform not only just to voice out the issues that have been affecting me not only the issues that have been affecting the children Mubasa account but also the issues that have been affecting the Kenya child as well